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It’s time to get real! Lets talk about your abs, are they ripped or rippled?

As I lay quietly down last night, I begin to think about when I should start my pre-season workouts. And like every year, I’ve been noticing that I’ve put on a warming layer of fat. I’m guessing that some of you are having similar thoughts.

These ideas were prompted by an article I read about Danielson and coach Crawford in the latest issue of Velonews. In which Tom was put on a diet in the pre-season. He lost something like 20 lbs prior to his 2003 season. So I wonder, should I also drop my extra fat before the season starts? Right now, I’m about 15 lbs greater then optimal weight (4-5% fat).

So lets put some of this is perspective. We quibble over the 100g or 110g seatposts and additional 50g hub weight. But my extra 15 lbs, being around 6800g is by far the cheapest part to upgrade. Or is it?

How do I loose weight off the motor? Well, my diets are very controlled. I weight my foods, and attempt to accurately estimate caloric outputs during daily operations and workouts. Obviously I pay close attention to nutritional requirements during this time. So what is the cost of this upgrade?

The cost of this is obvious to us. For me, I’m always hungry. No going out for lunch or dinner. Water… and not so much flavored drinks. And in the off-season, fruits and veggies are hard to get fresh. All of this makes additional stressors to deal with. And then there is the dreaded journal, keeping track of every calorie. Weighing every gram of food, and measuring every drop of liquid (except water). Damn this sucks. The expense of that added fat is put into mental anguish. Don’t think it’s free.

So is it worth it? Well, the current going rate for good bike equipment is about $1/g. So 15 lbs is about $6000 out of my pocket. Ok, money wise, I can’t afford to NOT to loose weight. How about the mental cost.

My brain is only capable of so much. Can a diet in the pre-season cause premature burnout? Yes. That’s a risky issue, BUT there is an off set benefit to the mental drudgery of diet. That is the feeling of light and fast. Seeing those deeply buried veins pop out of your legs, and flying up those hills as fast as that last girl you made a pass at. Being lean and mean puts some power back into our primal instincts. We don’t just want to race, we want to CRUSH and DESTROY the rest of the field. This is good mental health. Take for example Danielson; he went from average foe, to “get out of his way before he runs you off Mt. Washington”. Mentally, he’s the KOM, this is good. My typical early season race is more like, "Oh. F#$% this hurts... this sucks", not really the killer attitude.

So what’s the conclusion? I don’t know. I wish I had more experience with early season diets. It seems like a good idea, but I think the decision is up to my girlfriend. Is she willing to stay home and eat chicken feed with me, instead of going out?

Calm down mate, you need a bit of fat for winter. Those long rides in the cold is to hard if you are to skinny. I used to weigh my food, ages ago. And although it is good practise for losing weight it sort of borders on the insane. So now I just do miles if you do enough then hell you will not have time to weigh food, because it needs to go in. I know the feeling of being hungry all the time, it sucks and then you have that day where you lose control and eat the fridge with everything in it. So my advice train hard have good meals and cut down on the chocolates, cookies, beer and the like. I tried to put on weight for winter this year but could not no matter how hard I tried and am doing 460-500km per week and must admit I can just about eat anything now and it does not seem to go anywhere.

There are several things you fail to mention in your post. First off, I too feel that I need to lose a little weight in order to be at the best competitive mass for me. I weight about 67 kilos and I'm just over 6 feet tall. IN regards to Danielson, you also have to take into account that he is very new to the sport, and had a lot of "neuvo" success. He is very good, but his european palmares are a little light...what does this have anything to do with our discussion you ask? Well, Danielson was only seeing part of his potential because he was carrying around extra fat mass. In your case, you're probably doing some of your math wrong, because unless you're huge. If you're at 4-5% body fat, you are not carrying around 20 extra lbs of fat. 4-5% body fat is optimal, because in long efforts like that of cycling or distance running, your body uses primarily fat (not neccesarily STORED fat) as fuel.

Actually your bodys primary source of fuel for endurence is glycogen. Depending in the person you have anywhere form 300-500g of it in your muscles. Thats why eating and drink suplements is important in a long distance event so you replenish your glycogen stores. Fat is burned in addition to the glycogen but at about a 5/3 to a 5/2 rate. So if you burn say 3500 calories, the same amount of calories in one pound of fat, you would actually burn only 1400 calories to 2100 calories of fat, depending on your fitness level. I.e, more fat you burn, the more efficient your muscles are because more efficient mucles burn less glycogen then less efficient ones.

Lay mans terms, the more fit you get, the more quickly you can burn it off baby.

Just in case your wondering, your probly not, I'm 5'8" I weigh 56kilos during the season with 3 % body fat, and 61kilos in the off season with 5% body fat. I pack on about 10lbs of muscle and 2 lbs of fat during the off season.

When you want to be at your competition weight in a short time, it's quite easy. You do an endurance training 3x/ week and when you come home you don't eat anything. That will save about 1.5kg/ week. do this 3 weeks and after that you have to eat normal and the other 3 pounds will follow like that. When you are at your competition weight you can eat as much as you want, as long as you train enough, you won't gain weight

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